Governor Ramage RN r-4 Read online

  "Please, Mr Yorke! Then we come to Every such master is liable to a penalty of £100 who, being in danger of being boarded or taken possession of by the Enemy, shall not make signals by firing guns, or otherwise to convey information to the rest of the convoy, as well as to the ships of war under the protection of which he is sailing -"

  "They mean 'warn the rest of the convoy and escorts'."

  "Of course they do!" Croucher exclaimed angrily.

  "Then why not say it briefly and simply? Any fool can be verbose and obscure."

  "Where was I? Oh yes - he is sailing; and in case of being boarded or taken possession of, shall not destroy all instructions confided to him relating to the convoy."

  He is reading now, thought Ramage, like a dog scurrying past his master, fearful of being kicked. Having got so far without interruptions Croucher rushed on.

  "At the bottom of the page, No lights are to be shewn on board any of the ships after ten o'clock at night-"

  "It gets dark by seven o'clock in these latitudes," Yorke commented.

  "Quite so," Croucher said coldly, looking round accusingly at his clerk. "There should have been a note to that effect written in just below my signature. Would you remember that, gentlemen? Seven o'clock, not ten. And for the rest - Great care is to be taken that no light be seen through the Cabin windows, as many mistakes may arise from them being taken for the commanding officer's lights or signals made."

  "How true," Yorke said sadly with a shake of his head. "How very, very true."

  Ramage put his handkerchief to his face to stifle a laugh but Croucher, oblivious to the irony, nodded in agreement.

  "Well, gentlemen, the rest you know: page three - the signals are clear; page four - please watch for the section, The ships astern to make more sail. The signals you can make to the escorts are on page seven. Pages eight and nine - well, fog signals hardly apply. Night signals - yes, please use good lights, gentlemen; make sure your lamp trimmers are up to the mark. Finally, may I draw your attention to the memorandum on the back of the last page. All masters of merchant vessels to supply themselves with a quantity of False Fires to -"

  The snoring again drowned his voice, and one of the masters shouted, "George, belay the snorin'."

  "- to give the Alarm on the approach of any Enemy's Cruizer in the Night; or in the day to make the usual signal for an enemy. On being chased or discovering a suspicious vessel -"

  "A 'suspicious vessel'!" Yorke said. "How can a vessel be suspicious! Bows up and stern down, I suppose, sniffing the air like a gun-dog." ###

  "- vessel, and in the event of their capture being inevitable, either by day or night, the master is to cause the jeers, ties and haul yards to be cut and unrove, and their vessels to be so disabled as to prevent their being immediately capable of making sail. I think that just about covers everything," Croucher said, and flushed as Yorke said agreeably, "Oh indeed it does; both in the singular and the plural."

  "Gentlemen, I think the Admiral..."

  Croucher motioned to his clerk, who scurried out of the cabin. A minute or two later Goddard came back without looking at anyone, walked aft, stood against the bright glare of the stern lights and said:

  "Captain Croucher has told you that we risk meeting privateers and rowing galleys, as well as French and Spanish ships of war, all along our route to Jamaica. It is a grave risk, gentlemen, and I'd be failing in my duty if I didn't give you a further warning: there is a good reason for supposing the French will make a determined attempt to attack this particular convoy. That answers the question some of you may have been asking yourselves - why the Lion, a ship of the line, is part of your escort."

  The masters glanced at each other, trying to guess which of them commanded the ship carrying a cargo so valuable to the enemy, and Ramage too watched closely - the Master with the valuable cargo would not be curious. They all looked round, obviously puzzled, except for Yorke. He was watching Goddard with the same amused tolerance as before. But if Yorke's ship was of particular interest to the French he would surely look concerned even if not puzzled. There's probably no such ship or cargo, Ramage decided; Goddard is trying to scare the masters into keeping their positions - and to be fair, he is justified in using any lies, threats or stratagems to ensure that.

  "Unfortunately," Goddard continued, "I have to give you a further warning. The Admiralty intended that five frigates should be waiting for us here in Barbados." He gave an irritated sniff, hinting at his disapproval of what was to follow. "Regrettably the senior officer on this station has only three frigates available. But remember, the main purpose of the escort is to defend you against attack. In other words, I don't want to be forever sending the frigates off over the horizon to round up laggards.

  "If you value your lives, stay with the convoy. That means keeping a sharp lookout and not reducing sail at night. Most of you already know that the wind drops away nearly every night, and anyway, losing a sail is of little consequence when the alternative is losing your ship to the French rascals who'll be lurking around like wolves."

  He's scared, Ramage thought to himself. A regular convoy would count itself lucky to have a couple of frigates to carry it to Kingston. He has three frigates, the Lion, a brig and a lugger. But scared of what? Losing a ship from a convoy meant trouble for the commander of the escort if he was a junior captain. Trouble with the Admiralty and a sheaf of protests from owners and underwriters. But a rear-admiral with Goddard's patronage coming out as the new second-in-command to Sir Pilcher Skinner at Jamaica could lose a quarter of the convoy without too many eyebrows being raised. A valuable cargo would probably be money to pay the troops and buy stores, and the Lion would be carrying it. What could be frightening him?

  The probable answer was that Jebediah Arbuthnot Goddard, Rear-Admiral of the White, could handle a squadron of the King's ships, where every captain obeyed his signals instantly, or answered for the consequences under the Articles of War, but the prospect of trying to deal with forty-nine aggressive individualists, each of whom had probably thumbed his nose a dozen times at a frigate captain who'd ranged up close and fired a shot across his bow to try to force him to set more sail, daunted him.

  "Very well," Goddard said heavily, "you can rely on Captain Croucher to do everything in his power on your behalf, and the same goes for the commanding officers now joining us" - he gestured to them in turn - "Captain Edwards of the Greyhound, Captain James of the Antelope, Captain Raymond of the Raisonnable and Lieutenant Jenks of the Lark lugger."

  Several of the masters looked across at Ramage, wondering what he was doing at the conference, and Yorke raised an eyebrow. Ramage had half-expected a sarcastic or ambiguous reference but the deliberate omission took him unawares and he glanced down, his face expressionless, just as Yorke stood up, stooping slightly because of the low headroom.

  "Admiral Godson - I am sure I speak also for all my fellow shipmates in thanking you, in hoping we have a successful voyage to Jamaica, and in expressing our confidence in yourself and Captain Cruncher."

  The masters grunted their assent as they began to leave the cabin, and those who noticed Yorke's deliberate mistakes over the names did not trouble to hide their grins.

  Goddard flushed, but recovered in time to squeeze out a smile. "Thank you, Mr Yorke."

  As Ramage stood up to leave he saw Croucher motioning the three frigate captains and Jenks to stay behind. As no signal was made to him he followed the masters out of the cabin. Had there been some change of plan? Was he not to join the convoy after all? That would be almost too much to hope for...

  Chapter Two

  Ramage stood on the gangway abreast the mainmast. After an hour in the dim cabin he was almost blinded by the bright sun as he watched the masters waiting impatiently for their boats. Every few moments one would spot his and dodge out from under the tautly stretched awning to bellow an order to hurry up.

  Whether smooth of manner or rough, the masters had something in common: each was a good seaman. He
might be truculent when ordered about by an escort captain; he might furl or reef at night to avoid risking his owner's money on new sails; but he was every inch a seaman, whether commanding a large ship with a crew of thirty or a small schooner.

  In peacetime the smaller ships would have been hard pressed to find enough cargo to trade from one port in the English Channel to another, and would sail without insurance because no underwriter would risk his money without prohibitive premiums. War had given these small, old vessels a new lease of life. The shortage of ships had driven up the freight rates so the owners could afford the insurance, and the peacetime race to be first at the market-place with a cargo to get the highest prices, had been stopped by the convoy system. All the ships now arrived at the same time and the convoy's speed was that of its slowest vessel.

  "Didn't you command the Triton brig?"

  Ramage turned to find Yorke standing beside him.

  "I still do."

  "Where is she?"

  Ramage pointed to where she was lying at anchor on the far side of the shallow bay.

  "I've been hearing about you catching privateers off St Lucia and reading about you and Commodore Nelson at the battle off Cape St Vincent. I'd like to offer my congratulations."

  "Thank you, Mr - should I adopt your style and say, 'Mr Yorkshire'?"

  Yorke laughed. "I was rather pleased with that! Anyway," he said, putting out his hand, "Sidney Yorke, 'master under God' and owner of the Topaz."

  "Owner?" Ramage exclaimed, as he shook hands, "Why, you're..." He hastily rephrased his remark, "You have a fine ship."

  "And 'You're young to own and command her'?"

  "Well, I didn't actually say it!"

  "I inherited her. From what I hear, m'lud," Yorke said with a mock bow, "there are one or two senior officers not far from here who rated you young to catch privateers who'd escaped a couple of senior frigate captains - and would have rated you too young to trump the Spanish Fleet at St Vincent."

  Ramage grinned as he returned the bow, and Yorke suddenly waved. "There's my boat."

  Although neither man was conscious of it, each shared a common inheritance, the sea. For Yorke it had taken the form of a ship; for Ramage it was a family tradition of service in the Royal Navy. The Royal Kalendar, in the section headed "House of Peers. Earls", devoted three heavily abbreviated lines to Ramage's father:

  "Hen.VIII. 1540. Oct. 9. John Uglow Ramage, E. of Blazey, V. Ramage, an admiral of the White. St Kew Hall, St Kew, Cornwall."

  A glance at the preceding names, for the earldoms were listed in date order, showed the earldom was the third oldest in the country, having been created by Henry VIII more than two hundred and fifty years earlier, while the viscountcy - which the eldest son was allowed to use - was even older. The index several pages earlier gave the motto, family name and heir:

  "Blazey, E.I540. Nec dextrorsum nec sinistrorsum. Neither to the right nor the left. Ramage, V. Ramage."

  Although the facts were brief enough, a keen student of history could hazard a reasonably accurate guess at what else might have been said. The Ramages were a family that supported Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monasteries and, in return, received the title and grants of former church lands. They were staunch Royalists a century later and, along with many other Cornish landowners, had much of their property confiscated by Cromwell's Roundheads after bitter fighting. They lived to see the new King give it away to his favourites after the Restoration.

  But no student or reference book could even hint at why the present heir to the earldom, Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, did not use his title; nor how it was that he spoke fluent Italian (with an uncanny ability to mimic the colourful Neapolitan accent, Italy's equivalent of Cockney), Spanish and French. His skill in Italian came from a childhood spent in Tuscany, since his parents had close links with Italy. His knowledge of French and Spanish, he was always quick to admit, was entirely due to his mother, a very determined woman who chose strict tutors.

  From the day he first went to sea Ramage, on his father's advice, had not used his title: the old Admiral knew only too well the problems that a young midshipman might face if some well-meaning hostess gave him precedence over his captain at the dinner table because of his title.

  As Yorke's boat came alongside the Lion, the young shipowner said with sudden seriousness, "Well, good luck; might be wiser to keep a sharp lookout over your shoulder than over the bulwark. I wish you were coming to Jamaica with us."

  "I am."

  Yorke spun round. "Oh! So I guessed right... Well, you're young to have fallen foul of an admiral who forgets his name contains four more letters after the first three!"

  "It's a long story," Ramage said wryly.

  "Let's hope it has a happy ending. Be pleased - as my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty say - to keep an eye on the Topaz then! Incidentally, she's a legacy from my grandfather; made me serve an apprenticeship, then left me his fleet. Six ships, all named after gem-stones. Dine with me?"

  "Why - yes, I'd like to."

  "One o'clock? You'll find I'm carrying an interesting cargo. I'd like to hear a bit of that 'long story' if you -"

  "Mr Ramage, sir -"

  A plump, red-faced midshipman was standing waiting.

  "Captain Croucher's compliments, sir. Would you report to him in the cabin."

  Although a dozen thoughts were going through his mind as he nodded, Ramage remembered to warn Yorke that he might be a few minutes late. Walking aft, he saw the frigate captains leaving the cabin, followed by Jenks. The moment Jenks spotted Ramage he deliberately slowed down to let the captains get well ahead of him. The two of them had served together as midshipmen and later as lieutenants in the same ship and as he passed he whispered, "Watch your luff - I'm sure they're brewing up something..."

  The Marine sentry saluted as Ramage knocked on the door and was told to enter. Croucher sat at the same table by the stern lights and facing the door, but Ramage sensed rather than saw that someone was sitting at the forward end of the cabin.

  "Ah, Ramage, here are your orders."

  Ramage took the rectangular packet with a red seal on one side.

  "And the new convoy list. Forty-nine ships, seven columns of seven ships. You have the latest edition of the Signal Book, of course?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "There's a copy of the Admiral's additional signals in with your orders. Sign this."

  As Ramage reached for the quill and inkwell he saw that the slip of paper was a straightforward receipt for the orders and convoy list.

  "And Ramage," Croucher said, his voice hardening and his hands clenching like claws, "at your trial last year you escaped punishment on a technicality ..."

  Ramage stiffened and looked directly at him, and Croucher's cold, grey eyes looked down at the table.

  "Punishment for what, sir?"

  "You know very well what I mean."

  "Punishment presupposes guilt, sir. Of what was I found guilty?"

  He spoke quietly, but every nerve in his body was alert: he felt lightly balanced on the balls of his feet, poised and on guard, ready to fence with a master swordsman.

  From behind he heard Goddard's oily voice. "At the moment you are guilty of anything I choose to say."

  Ramage realized he was right: the cabin was a trap. With only Croucher and Goddard present - a captain high on the post list and a senior rear-admiral - either could accuse him of anything, with the other as an unimpeachable witness. Mutinous behaviour, treasonable talk, even attempted murder - what reasonable men would believe Ramage's word against theirs?

  Slowly, despite the heat of the cabin, he felt his whole body chill and every hair rise up spikily, like an angry cat's fur, his skin tightening in nature's response to danger. The ticking of a clock grew louder and more precise, the slapping of wavelets under the counter more distinct; overhead seamen's feet were padding on the deck. The colours of Croucher's uniform - and everything else in the cabin - were now brighter and sharper; the cut
glass reflected tiny rainbows on the bulkheads. He knew that in a few moments he'd be gripped by a rage which slowed down time, speeded his reactions, doubled his strength and left him without humility or humanity. Such rage gripped him rarely - only twice before in his life - and it frightened him.

  The Ramage family had never harmed Goddard. If the Ramages vanished off the face of the earth, Goddard would not gain a penny in cash or an inch of promotion; nothing except the congratulations of sycophants like Croucher who followed him for the rewards they got from his patronage. It was a senseless vendetta he waged.

  Suddenly Ramage remembered his reactions at the trumped-up trial Goddard had staged in the Mediterranean. At first he'd been shocked and overwhelmed, then he'd become too disgusted by their malicious cruelty and veniality to bother to fight back. Then he'd realized that his inaction was playing their game: by simply answering questions and not attacking he was letting them beat him.

  Ramage had been in Barbados by chance when the convoy arrived but his presence in the Lion's cabin was a new opportunity for Goddard to attack him. He was collecting the evidence for another carefully rigged trial when the convoy reached Jamaica.

  Ramage didn't have to watch his words, since they could swear he had said or done anything they liked. So be it! In battle, doing the unexpected can be as effective as doubling the size of your fleet. He turned suddenly to face Goddard.

  "With respect, sir, what do you want to charge me with?"

  He spoke quietly and slowly, but each word was hard and unambiguous. He added: "Wouldn't you prefer to hurry it up and have me charged and tried before the convoy sails?"

  Goddard's jaw dropped. Now for the second broadside, Ramage thought, and this will show whether that gross clown in admiral's uniform really is a coward.

  "Wounding a superior officer, perhaps? That'd bring in mutiny, and Captain Croucher could swear to 'treasonable utterances' as well. But for a wounding charge I'd have to supply some tangible evidence..."